Duty
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Shandrea AU. Oneshot. Shane had a duty to Rick. He had a duty to Lori. To Carl. To the baby girl that wasn't free to be his. But he had no duty to her. Shane/Andrea. Rated for language and adult situations.


**AN: This is in response to the Tumblr prompt that wanted Shane and Andrea with a one night stand and a little something more. I don't know if it's exactly what the person wanted, because it sort of took off on its own.**

 **I've never written Shane and Andrea together, and this was interesting to think about. This also ended up with a heavy dose of Rick/Lori being mentioned, though that wasn't part of the original prompt.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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They always said that the best way to get over someone was to get under someone else, and if they didn't always say it? They should have.

Kicking the habit of a woman was like kicking the habit of anything else. A woman got into your blood. She got into your senses. She messed you up where all you could think about was the next hit, the next fix. You could become a junkie on a woman just as quick as you could on anything else. The only difference was that with women they called it love. With other things? Addiction. It was all the same thing, though.

Lori didn't have time for Shane now. She didn't have an interest in him. She told him to get away from her and to get out of her life—and she held strong to that any time she told him that, right up until she needed him again.

She hadn't told him to get as far away from her as possible when Rick had landed in the hospital. She'd asked him to stay when Rick had the accident. She'd wanted him there when the doctor said that everything would be fine, that it was a routine surgery, and that she should wait.

Shane had waited with her. He'd even gotten in touch with her parents to make sure that someone was there to pick Carl up from school so that the kid wouldn't be traumatized by the fact that his father was in the hospital having a bullet dug out of his chest.

There might not have been any more to the story than that, either, if the surgery had gone well enough. At the time? Shane wasn't hooked on her. At the time? He wasn't hooked on anyone. He went through women easily enough and it wasn't a problem to shuck one off and find another.

No, at that time it wasn't about Lori as much as it was about duty. Shane had a duty to his best friend and partner of seven years. He had a duty to be there while he was in surgery and make sure that Rick's wife was fine—that his son was OK. Shane was doing his duty.

He was doing his duty, too, the night that he'd gone over to Rick's house—having left Lori like she'd asked him to so that she could get some rest—and comforted her over the newest news. The routine surgery hadn't gone as planned. There'd been a flaw. There'd been some minor test they hadn't run, some detail overlooked, and Rick had slipped into a coma when he should've just woken right up and requested some jello.

He wasn't going to wake up. He wouldn't wake up soon and, from the looks of it, he might never wake up. It was a waiting game. It was a matter of time and seeing what happened. But Lori, as his wife, needed to start thinking about what she might want to do—she needed to start thinking about how she might handle it if it came down to nothing else to be done for him.

So she'd called Shane. And he'd gone over, out of duty to Rick, to sit with the grieving near-widow who had already seemed to sign away her husband's life.

She hadn't told him to get out of her life then. When comforting her over her loneliness—and a couple of bottles of beer and wine shared while Carl was with his grandparents—had turned to comforting Shane over his loneliness as well? Things had gotten out of hand. At least, now he knew they'd gotten out of hand. She'd asked for a little more than a condolence casserole from him and he'd gladly given it. In the morning after stupor? They'd both been sorry for what they'd done. It would never happen again. The age old song and dance.

But Shane had already had a taste, and like any junkie would tell you, he was hooked.

So it had happened again. And she hadn't told him to get out of her life. If anything? She'd invited him deeper into her life. Carl needed things. He needed a father. He needed guidance. He needed support. Even if it came from his so-called "Uncle Shane" and he was none the wiser that sleepovers between Uncle Shane and Mom were a little more than staying up too late and watching television, Carl needed something from him.

Shane had, all of a sudden, a purpose. He had a duty to someone. And now? It was a duty to Lori and to Carl—and it wasn't so much to the partner that was in a special care unit in the hospital showing absolutely no signs of getting better. He was showing, then, no signs of anything.

Shane even went down there, twice on his own, to ask Rick to wake up and tell him to stop fucking his wife. But Rick didn't wake up. He didn't seem bothered at all by what was happening. He'd checked out of his life and left the spot vacant that Shane was more than happy to fill.

So it had come as a shock when Rick had quickly and inexplicably recovered. Just like he'd slipped into the coma—all at once and completely—so had he come out of it. There was no real explanation given besides that he'd "healed" from what had caused it. Some around town called it a miracle, even, since many of them had started to doubt that he'd ever recover.

That's when she'd told him to get out of her life. That's when she'd had all she wanted to do with him.

But when he tried to go? The confusing bitch had begged him not to. He was something of a constant in her life now. He'd been there when nobody else had. She needed him. He couldn't just callously go and pretend that none of it had ever happened.

But, of course, he couldn't pretend that any of it had happened either.

And Carl needed him. Carl didn't know the details of what had gone on during all those months when they'd told him they hoped his father recovered while they secretly believed that the man never would. To Carl? Shane was his uncle, his second father. He needed him. He had a duty to Carl. He couldn't leave him.

Even Rick, unfortunately finding out what had happened because it was hard to conceal, had forgiven Shane. At least, he said he'd forgiven him. He said he'd forgiven Lori. There was always something in his eye that said he hadn't, but his mouth said he had. His only stipulation, clearly, was that nothing was to ever happen again. They could be "friends". Shane was his partner. They could work things out. But there was nothing to every happen between Shane and Lori again.

Except, Shane couldn't stay away—not really—because he'd already had a taste for the skinny, brown eyed, brunette and the life that having her represented.

And when she turned up pregnant? He couldn't believe that it was Rick's. The times just didn't add up. Even if she tried to pass off a baby born at full term as "premature" to try and make the time tables line up? Shane wouldn't believe it. That little girl—she was his. Rick could say what he wanted. Lori could try to make nice with her husband that she was all too quick to dismiss before. But that little girl? Shane knew he was her father. And he had a duty to his daughter.

That's when Lori had kicked him out of her life the last time. That's when she'd told him to go away. She'd told him to get as far away from her, her husband, her son, and her baby as was humanly possible. It wasn't any of his business. For the fairy tale to be everything they wanted it to be? Now that Rick had made his miraculous recovery? Shane was supposed to get as far away from her as he possibly could.

He was supposed to forget about her and the baby.

At least until she needed him again.

Which is why he'd picked the blonde up from the bar.

The best way to get over someone was to get under someone new. That's what they said. And if they didn't say it? They should.

Andrea was everything that was the opposite of Lori. She had no husband and she had no son. She wasn't looking for commitment and the family life. Where Lori carried barely enough weight to cover her skeleton, Andrea carried enough to have excess in all the places it best fit. Lori was brown eyes and dark hair, but Andrea was blonde with light eyes that tricked him as they changed from green to blue and back again during the course of the night depending on the way they caught the light.

She was perfect to break a habit. She was excellent for quenching his thirst and giving him a taste for something else.

She wasn't the kind that he wanted to keep around—but she was something different.

And he made pretty clear that she knew that the moment that they got back to his place.

"This isn't some kind of long term thing," he commented, even as he served her a drink.

"I'm not asking you to marry me," she said. "I'm not asking you to tell me you love me. I didn't come here for forever. I came here for—the same thing you want out of this."

Shane eyed her sitting on his couch, one leg crossed over the other, the bottom of her panties just visible from where her skirt had hiked up in the transition from standing to sitting.

"I just want to make sure you know," Shane said. He checked himself when she made a face. He realized he was yelling. He was channeling his frustration with the whole damn situation on the blonde and she was innocent. He would channel more frustration onto her, though. He knew that too. "Don't come—looking me up. Don't come begging me to come back. When we're done? We're done. I'm not going to be a yo-yo for you to just snatch back whenever you get some kind of whim to do it."

Andrea got to her feet, nearly sloshing her drink, and stared at him, shaking her head slightly. She looked confused. She had every reason in the world to look confused. She didn't know what it was like dealing with Lori. She didn't know what it was like to leave when they told you to leave, come back when they asked you to come back—only to be told to leave again. She didn't know what it was like to fight the addiction of a woman.

She didn't know what he was going through—and he didn't want her to know. He didn't want her to care.

"What's wrong?" She asked. "With you? What happened to you?"

She knew something was wrong. She was blonde, but she wasn't as dumb as every dumb blonde joke might suggest she'd be—but Shane didn't want her to know.

"You don't need to give a shit about me," he said. "Because I—I don't care about you. You got that? This? It's just what it is. Just tonight. I don't owe you. After this? I don't owe you for anything?"

Andrea stared at him a moment, the confusion gone and replaced by something else—something Shane couldn't quite identify—and then she hummed. She tasted her wine and put the glass on the coffee table near her before she came to Shane and reached her arms out. She caught his shoulders and kneaded the muscles in her hands as she stood facing him.

"You don't owe me," she said. "And—I don't owe you. We both know what we're here for. It's not—forever. It's just tonight."

Shane felt his pulse slowing down a little. She was beautiful. She was plenty beautiful to fill the role that he needed her to fill. And so much the opposite of Lori—it was perfect.

And he didn't even have to care about her. He had no duty to her.

He reminded her of that again, the next morning, when he dropped her off at the place she directed him to go. He didn't have any duty to her.

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Andrea stared at the stick for at least a half an hour. Time seemed to freeze as she stood there looking at it. More than once she'd done this. More than once she'd held one of the sticks in her hand and she'd waited for the timer to go off. More than once she'd prayed without really knowing what she was praying for.

This time? This was the first time that the stick had changed to this particular design and she watched it much longer than she'd watched any of the others, almost as though she expected it to change again—shifting around like the crystals in a kaleidoscope.

It didn't change, though. It remained exactly the same. It was set and it wasn't going anywhere. A one night stand with a man she barely even knew—an angry man she saw around town just because he was a police officer and seemed to be known by everyone—and Andrea was looking at her own type of life sentence.

Shane. Shane Walsh. He'd been angry that night, hurt by something he never really explained. She'd accepted his anger and everything else that he'd had to give her.

She hadn't spoken to him after that, and he hadn't spoken to her. She'd seen him more than once—around town—because he was a police officer. Everyone seemed to know him. But, somehow, Andrea doubted if anyone really knew him. Because the man that she'd been with that night? The man that had come at her with some kind of burning anger—some kind of almost violent passion for the act more than for her? He wasn't the smiling, polite, jovial police officer that waved at everyone in town.

The officer that waved at everyone except Andrea.

No, the man who had left this little present with Andrea—her brand new responsibility for at least the next eighteen years—had not been the man that she saw uptown. He wasn't the man that everybody knew.

And he wouldn't know about this.

Andrea dropped the stick into the trash can and checked her reflection in the mirror while she washed her hands. Shane Walsh wouldn't know about this. He didn't need to know and he wouldn't care, because he hadn't cared about Andrea.

And he had no duty to her.


End file.
